I watched the news today. They were talking about doomsday. And it made me sad. Not because I'm nervous about Jesus fulfilling all His prophecies about earth's final chapter. But because millions are laughing about something they desperately need to take seriously.
A Christian radio pastor has widely announced that May 21 will be the beginning of the end of time - with a cataclysmic event that will ultimately usher in the coming of Jesus. There's nothing I look forward to more than that moment when Jesus will break through the clouds, come in power and great glory and erase every doubt that He is King of kings.
I just don't believe we know when that's going to be. Jesus said, "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven..." (Matthew 24:36). No matter how you parse His words, they say that the time of His coming cannot be predicted.
As a junior high boy nosing around in the church library, I read old World War II books written about end times prophecy. They had it all figured out - who was the antichrist, who was the restored Roman Empire, the talk about Israel having a nation. And I smiled. Reading it years later, it was obvious that Jesus didn't come back on their timetable.
Unfortunately, naming a date inadvertently gives people a reason not to take the clear-cut prophecies of Scripture seriously. The Bible has told us that "in the last days, scoffers will come...They will say, 'Where is this coming He promised?'" (2 Peter 3:3-4). It hurts to think that our date-naming - and other teaching that reaches beyond what the Bible reveals - would give those scoffers any more ammunition. Today, a major news anchor asked, after reporting on the doomsdate story, "Who believes this stuff?"
She - and everyone - needs to believe that Jesus is, in fact, coming back. That every person will see Him. That there will come a day when the mightiest of earth will call "to the mountains and the rocks, 'Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne...'" (Revelation 6:15-16). It will be a day when there will be no more choosing Jesus. Only every knee bowing at His Name (Philippians 2:9-10), many realizing it is forever too late to know Him.
I heard that the Center for Disease Control is trying to make the most of all this doomsday talk. They're using it to encourage people to have a disaster plan for emergencies. To be ready.
That's exactly Jesus' warning in His prophecies for the "last days" world. Prophecies that do paint a picture that increasingly seems very much like our world. He said, "You must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect Him" (Matthew 24:44). He said He would rise from the dead after three days - and that's exactly what He did. He said He would return to this earth as Judge and King - and that's exactly what He will do.
You can only be ready if your sins have been erased from God's book. And only the Man who died for those sins can do that. "Now is the day of salvation" (2 Corinthians 6:2). Now is the day to make the King of kings your king.
A friend of ours was desperately cleaning her totaled room, getting ready for the anticipated arrival of her guy the next day. She heard a knock on the door. It was her guy - a day earlier than expected. There she stood amid the piles, dressed in her grubbies, hair matted with sweat. All she could do was exclaim, "I wasn't expecting you now!" She waited too long to get cleaned up. Time was up.
That's a mistake you don't want to make with Jesus.